Art (Mike Faist of West Side Story ’21) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor of The Crown and God’s Own Country) have known each other since they were 12. Tennis camp buds who’ve been serving their way through life, they’re known as Fire and Ice on the high school doubles circuit. And then comes the fateful day when they meet Tashi (Zendaya), who brings many emotions into focus and metaphorically sets things on fire with sheer force of will.
Before we reach the end of Challengers, there will be an attempted triad, a marriage, a daughter and so many deceptions and dramas. It’s awesome. Our main trio is superb here, with the kind of earthy realness and casual sparks that make you feel like you’re watching a Radley Metzger film. This is a sensual film rooted in shifting dynamics and pitiless human nature — think David Cronenberg’s Crash, but with tennis instead of car wrecks.Â
Nobody does fleshy uncertainty like Luca Guadagnino. And he’s found a great, razor-sharp script (courtesy of first-time screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes) that lends itself to his gifts for vibrancy and internalized drama, as well as longtime cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s artistry with light. The score is majestic, relentless and deeply sneaky. Finally fulfilling Trent Reznor's post-Downward Spiral promise to get back to his raver roots, Challengers finds Reznor (and longtime collaborators Atticus Ross and Mariqueen Maandig) channeling Patrick Cowley’s gentleman film scores and the kind of maximalist techno that Pascal F.E.O.S. excelled at pummeling dancers with the world over. Some may find its tendency toward thwarting diegesis a tad distracting, but it feels rather revolutionary to allow programmed boom-boom to represent the vicissitudes of the human heart in such a fashion. You’ll definitely hear this at your higher-end gyms and spring fertility celebrations this season.
Temporally nimble with a lot of timeslips that fit into the kinetic give-and-take of the tennis matches we witness, Challengers feels at times as though it is dancing around its defined specifics, letting a combination of professional uncertainty and horniness take the driver’s seat. But this approach works, letting the viewer find their own way through the tangled relationships our three leads have with one another, and while it’s the various tennis matches that provide structure, it’s the deliciously soapy reversals and shifts that keep you riveted.Â
Thankfully, there’s no compound fractures. But the tragic accident that derails Tashi’s professional career — sending her into coaching realm and further permutations of life with these tennis twinks — presides over so much of the rest of the film, Zendaya’s perfect outfit a dress that bares her scarred knee for all to see. She’s close to a revelation in this, holding court (ha!) and keeping these two guys in lifelong orbit around her. But that scar tells the story, gristle and bone that supersedes every stolen kiss or secret rendezvous or devastating turn of phrase, in the way that every sports movie has to defer to the body.
